Type system

Pine has 9 fundamental data types. They are: int, float, bool, color, string, line, label, plot, hline. All of these types exist in several forms. There are 5 forms of types: literal, const, input, simple and a series. We will often refer to a pair form type as a type. The Pine compiler distinguishes between a literal bool type, an input bool type, a series bool type and so on.

There is also an array type, a void type, a na (not available) value and a compound tuple type.

Type forms

Literal

A literal is a special notation for representing a fixed value in Pine. This fixed value itself is an expression and such literal expressions are always of one of the 5 following types:

• literal float (3.14, 6.02E-23, 3e8)
• literal int (42)
• literal bool (true, false)
• literal string ("A text literal")
• literal color (#FF55C6)

Const

Values of the form const are ones that:

• do not change during script execution
• are known or can be calculated at compile time

For example:

The type of c1 is const int because it is initialized with a literal int expression. The type of c2 is also const int because it is initialized with an arithmetic expression of const int type. The type of c3 is series int because it changes at runtime.

Input

Values of the form input are ones that:

• do not change during script execution
• are unknown at compile time
• originate from an input() function

For example:

p = input(10, title="Period")

The type of p variable is input integer.

Simple

Values of the form simple are ones that:

• do not change during script execution
• are unknown at compile time

They are values that come from the main chart’s symbol information. For example, the syminfo.mintick built-in variable is a simple float. The word simple is usually omitted when referring to this form, so we use float rather than simple float.

Series

Values of the form series are ones that:

• change during the script execution
• store a sequence of historical values associated with bars of the main chart’s symbol
• can be accessed using the [] operator. Note that only the last value in the series, i.e., the one associated with the current bar, is available for both reading and writing

The series form is the most common form in Pine. Examples of built-in series variables are: open, high, low, close, volume and time. The size of these series is equal to the quantity of available bars for the current ticker and timeframe (resolution). Series may contain numbers or a special value: na, meaning that a value is not available. Further information about the na value can be found here. Any expression that contains a series variable will be treated as a series itself. For example:

Fundamental types

int

Integer literals must be written in decimal notation. For example:

There are 5 forms of int type in Pine:

• literal int
• const int
• input int
• int
• series int

float

Floating-point literals contain a delimiter (the symbol .) and may also contain the symbol e (which means “multiply by 10 to the power of X”, where X is the number after the symbol e). Examples:

The first number is the rounded number Pi (π), the second number is very large, while the third is very small. The fourth number is simply the number 3 as a floating point number.

There are 5 forms of float type in Pine:

• literal float
• const float
• input float
• float
• series float

The internal precision of floats in Pine is 1e-10.

bool

There are only two literals representing bool values:

There are 5 forms of bool type in Pine:

• literal bool
• const bool
• input bool
• bool
• series bool

color

Color literals have the following format: # followed by 6 or 8 hexadecimal digits matching RGB or RGBA value. The first two digits determine the value for the red color component, the next two, green, and the third, blue. Each component value must be a hexadecimal number from 00 to FF (0 to 255 in decimal).

The fourth pair of digits is optional. When used, it specifies the alpha (opacity) component, a value also from 00 (fully transparent) to FF (fully opaque). Examples:

There are 5 forms of color type in Pine:

• literal color
• const color
• input color
• color
• series color

One might ask how a value can be of type input color if it is impossible to use input() to input a color in Pine. The answer is: through an arithmetic expression with other input types and color literals/constants. For example:

This is an arithmetic expression using Pine’s ternary operator ?: where three different types of values are used: b of type input bool, color.red of type const color and #000000 of type literal color. In determining the result’s type, the Pine compiler takes into account its automatic type-casting rules (see the end of this section) and the available overloads of the ?: operator. The resulting type is the narrowest type fitting these criteria: input color.

The following built-in color variables can be used to avoid hexadecimal color literals: color.black, color.silver, color.gray, color.white, color.maroon, color.red, color.purple, color.fuchsia, color.green, color.lime, color.olive, color.yellow, color.navy, color.blue, color.teal, color.aqua, color.orange.

It is possible to change the transparency of the color using a built-in function color.new.

Here is an example:

string

String literals may be enclosed in single or double quotation marks. Examples:

"This is a double quoted string literal"
'This is a single quoted string literal'

Single and double quotation marks are functionally equivalent. A string enclosed within double quotation marks may contain any number of single quotation marks, and vice versa:

"It's an example"
'The "Star" indicator'

If you need to enclose the string’s delimiter in the string, it must be preceded by a backslash. For example:

'It\'s an example'
"The \"Star\" indicator"

There are 5 forms of string type in Pine:

• literal string
• const string
• input string
• string
• series string

line and label

New drawing objects were introduced in Pine v4. These objects are created with the line.new() and label.new() functions. Their type is series line and series label, respectively. There is only one form of the line and label types in Pine: series.

plot and hline

A few function annotations (in particular plot and hline) return values which represent objects created on the chart. The function plot returns an object of the type plot, represented as a line or diagram on the chart. The function hline returns an object of the type hline, represented as a horizontal line. These objects can be passed to the fill() function to color the area in between them.

array

Arrays in Pine are identified by an array id. There is no single type representing an array id, but rather an overloaded version of a subset of fundamental Pine types which reflects the type of an array’s elements. These type names are constructed by appending the [] suffix to one of the four fundamental types allowed in arrays:

• int[]
• float[]
• bool[]
• color[]

void

There is a void type in Pine Script. Most functions and annotation functions which produce a side effect return a void result. E.g., strategy.entry(), plotshape() etc.

A void result cannot be used in any arithmetic expression or be assigned to a variable.

na value

In Pine there is a special built-in variable na, which is an acronym for not available, meaning an expression or variable has no value. This is very similar to the null value in Java or None in Python.

There are a few things to know about na values. First, the na value can be automatically cast to almost any type.

Secondly, in some cases the Pine compiler cannot automatically infer a type for a na value because more that one automatic type-casting rule can be applied. For example:

Here, the compiler cannot determine if myVar will be used to plot something, as in plot(myVar) where its type would be series float, or to set some text as in label.set_text(lb, text=myVar) where its type would be series string, or for some other purpose. Such cases must be explicitly resolved in one of two ways:

or:

Thirdly, to test if some value is not available, a special function must be used: na. For example:

Do not use the operator == to test for na values, as this is not guaranteed to work.

Tuples

In Pine Script there is limited support for a tuple type. A tuple is an immutable sequence of values used when a function must return more than one variable as a result. For example:

In this example there is a 2-tuple on the last statement of the function calcSumAndMul. Tuple elements can be of any type. There is also a special syntax for calling functions that return tuples. For example, calcSumAndMul must be called as follows:

where the value of local variables sum and mul will be written to the s and m variables of the outer scope.

Type casting

There is an automatic type-casting mechanism in Pine Script. In the following picture, an arrow denotes the Pine compiler’s ability to automatically cast one type to another:

For example:

The type of the series parameter of the plotshape function is series bool. But the function is called with the close argument of type series float. The types do not match, but an automatic type-casting rule series float series bool (see the diagram) does the proper conversion.

Sometimes there is no automatic X Y type-casting rule. For these cases, explicit type-casting functions were introduced in Pine v4. They are:

• int
• float
• string
• bool
• color
• line
• label

Here is an example:

This code fails to compile with an error: Add to Chart operation failed, reason: line 4: Cannot call sma with arguments (series[float], const float); available overloads: sma(series[float], integer) => series[float]; The compiler says that while the type of the len variable is const float, the sma function expected an integer. There is no automatic type casting from const float to integer, but an explicit type-casting function can be used: